Media dilemma: How to cover Sandy, Barack and Mitt

Commentary: A nasty campaign takes a sharp turn to bipartisanship

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Yes, Hurricane Sandy, above all, has caused mass suffering and property devastation. In addition, the epochal storm has changed the tenor of the media’s coverage of the presidential election during the campaign’s last, climactic week.

Political journalists hadn’t counted on this, of course. They had expected to report on the last stages of the President Barack Obama vs. Gov. Mitt Romney fracas with the same brand of charges and counter-charges that had enlivened and defined a most brutal presidential election. Surely you can remember the fury of the recently completed Obama-Romney debates?

Now, Hurricane Sandy has changed the dynamic of reporting on the race. Because the catastrophe arrived just as the opponents were concluding their campaign journey, politics has intruded in a crisis of epic proportions — or is it the other way around?

The race is still too close to call. Depending on which poll you want to believe, either candidate is looking good. Obama is generally believed to hold an edge in such swing states as Ohio. But the entrance of Hurricane Sandy can change the polls before Election Day on Tuesday.

The media have the challenge of distinguishing between politics-as-usual acts from the candidates’ humanitarian gestures. The reporters would prefer to do their usual job of reporting what the candidates are saying on the stump. But it isn’t quite that easy any longer.

At the core, the disaster sparked some real political concerns. Would Election Day have to be pushed back? Would the crisis in Manhattan and other pockets where Obama is strong be affected to a point where voters couldn’t get out of their homes and cast their ballots on Tuesday. Would the suspension of the campaigning for a few days help or hurt either candidate severely? Does Obama look “presidential” as he acts as the commander-in-chief?

Obama, Romney return to campaign trail

(3:26)

After being sidelined in Washington for most of the week to monitor superstorm Sandy, President Obama was back on the campaign trail Thursday laying out his closing argument and attacking Republican nominee Mitt Romney with just five days before the election. Jerry Seib has details on The News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.

By design or happenstance, Obama produced a riveting photo op when he walked in hurricane-ravaged New Jersey this week in lockstep with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Talk about politics and strange bedfellows. The two politicians, the Democratic president and the Republican governor who may have aspirations of winning the White House someday, now had common goals of both acting to help New Jersey residents while showing the voters that their heads and hearts were in the right place. (OK, I’m cynical — but I bet that you were thinking the same thing when you saw this odd couple acting like teammates, not adversaries.).

As ABCNews.com noted on Wednesday in its lead item: “President Obama surveyed the devastation wreaked by the superstorm Sandy today with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in what both men said was a non-political event. But it was a powerful image of bipartisan cooperation just six days before the election.”

Chimed in NBCNews.com, about the president’s visit to New Jersey: “He was shown around by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and vocal backer of presidential challenger Mitt Romney who nevertheless has praised Obama and the federal response to the storm.” (Yes, Christie may also be building political goodwill among his state’s voters here, but that is another story for another election).

Christie had lambasted the incumbent not too long ago at the Republican National Convention.Now, they were united in their objective to help the citizens of New Jersey recover from Sandy.

Reporters had to ask: Was the president engaging in a well-timed gesture? Whether this question strikes you as in poor taste, considering the destruction in the Garden State, the question must be asked because Obama’s tour of New Jersey occurred at a time when he would normally be pressing the flesh and his case for re-election in closely contested states such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

The journalists covering Romney reported that the Republican candidate struck a hopeful tone, rather than his typical performance of lashing out at Obama’s promises and performance, when Romney said Wednesday in Tampa, Fla.: “It’s interesting to see how people come together.”

CNN journalist Candy Crowley, who served as the moderator of the second presidential debate, noted that the two candidates tried hard to convey sympathy for the storm’s victims — but they also kept their eyes on the ball on the stump.

By Thursday, on the campaign trail, it was more a case of business as usual to a degree. Crowley pointed out that after Obama and Romney have struck the appropriate tone about Sandy’s destruction, “they go right into campaign mode.” Crowley said neither of them “has had a [hard] time balancing” the tasks of showing compassion while attacking the opponent.

For the national media, however, it might be much tougher for them to keep a balancing act of determining how effectively Obama and Romney performed this week.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you think that Hurricane Sandy will affect the way the media cover the presidential election?

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